MinecraftEdu

Tonight I may have stumbled across a life changing blog when finishing up my assignments for the semester.  A classmate of mine wrote a blog post about MinecraftEdu.  Being the mother of a 9-year-old avid Minecraft player I was surprised I had never heard about this move by Minecraft producers to make Minecraft more accessible in educational institutions.  I did a quick search and was inundated with youtube videos, blog posts, and websites discussing this move by Minecraft producers.  I found teachers making Minecraft videos about cell structure, math functions, physics topics, etc. etc.  

Cut to my 9-year-old making Rainbow-Loom bracelets having already used up his one hour of game time today.  I yell to him to come into my office and question him about what he is currently learning about in school.  He replies, "multiplication, division, Thanksgiving, the different Native American tribes of Michigan." Bingo!  After a few more questions I learn that he is currently learning about the historical location of the tribes throughout the State.  I tell him he can play Minecraft if he somehow incorporates what he is learning about in Social Studies.  He was thrilled!  He raced downstairs and 30 min later produced the video above.  

This not only made me think about the ways I could incorporate more learning into Minecraft it forced Kal to talk to me about school.  School comes very easily to him and he is usually bored with the topic and replies with "good" every time I ask him about anything related to school.  I learned more in our five minute conversation about what he learning than I have learned questioning him every day!  He was motivated.  I am excited with the endless possibilities to come from this new discovery.

Below are some useful resources-

http://www.youtube.com/user/EduElfie/videos

http://minecraftedu.com/page/

Edublogger

I was a bit hesitant to respond to an Edublogger.  I was not quite sure what to say or what to ask or how to approach commenting.  I ended up telling the blogger how helpful I found his blog.  I thanked him for all of his great ideas about teaching anatomy and asked him how he introduces new vocabulary to his students.  The amount of vocabulary students in anatomy are faced with can be overwhelming so I was curious as to how he approached this with his students.  

I was pleasantly surprised when he responded within a few hours! He answered my question and thanked me for my comment.  There was however something about his response that I found a bit irritating.  He plugged his book and copied the link to purchase a textbook he had written.  It made me feel like he responded just to try to sell some more copies of his book.  I then thought maybe that was the point of his whole blog- just to try to make money off his books.  Either way I will continue to read his blog because it is a great resource with a lot of helpful links but I do not see myself commenting again. 

On a side note, the image above was generated by a free program called Wordle.  All you do is either type or copy and paste text into the text box and hit generate.  Wordle randomizes the words and makes the words that are used the most bigger than the others. You can format the shape and color of the font that Wordle generates.  The one above was created by copying and pasting a blog post from the Edublogger I have been following.  I thought it would be a fun activity to do with students for a get to know you activity at the beginning of the year. 

Podcasting

I was one of the few in class who had no idea what a podcast was.  I knew there was a tab for them on itunes but I had never looked at them.  As you can imagine, I learned a whole lot from the group presentation on podcasting.  

Who knew it was so easy to make your own podcast?! What a fun activity for students to try!  I thought more about incorporating this into my classroom when Liz taught us about audioblogger.  This seemed like a relatively easy tool for students to use to create their very own audio diary/podcast/blog.  I know the students would be excited to try any assignment that allowed them to use their cellphones!  I can see them being excited and engaged in whatever assignment I chose to use the podcasting for.  

Another interesting thing I learned from the presentation was that there are thousands of podcasts available and FREE on itunes!  You can search by whatever you want and have many different options.  I drive an hour everyday so I listen to TED talks in the car.  The problem with that is sometimes they refer to their Powerpoint presentations that I am not able to watch as I am driving.  I think listening to podcasts would be a better option.  

Overall the presentation influenced me to listen to podcasts and perhaps try having my students record short messages as homework.  The presentation did not motivate me to make my own podcasts.  That still seems a little to tech advanced for me :) 

Cellphones in the Classroom-

 

The joy a 9-year-old gets from his first cellphone! 

Last week we had a very informative speaker come in and talk to us about all of the educational uses for a cellphone.  I was fascinated by her presentation and grateful for all of the resources she shared with us.  I was also very moved by her story and found it extremely motivating.  

I was unsure about incorporating cellphones into my classroom because I did not want students without a smart phone to be at a disadvantage.  The guest speaker shared with us numerous things you could do with students with just a simple flip phone!  I was blown away.  

Audioblogger - I think this would be a great tool to use with students.  As a science teacher I imagine taking students on a trip outside and having them audio record what they saw, what interested them, what they would like to know more about, etc.  This would be useful for me to learn about what their interests are but it could also be an intriguing lesson launch for students.  There are a lot of different avenues we could go down from here... 

As a mom I agreed with the speaker when she presented evidence about - the younger students are introduced to texting the better their ability to read words.  My son could read by the age of three and he spent a lot of time on my cellphone.  When we would be out to long dinners he would text his aunts and uncles to pass the time.  He began by asking me how to spell certain words around the age of two and I would help and tell him what they had said back.  As time went on he got better and better at not only texting but reading the responses.  So far this year he has gotten a 100% on every single one of his spelling tests and he is one of the top readers in his class, although math and social studies are his favorite subjects.  The guest speaker got quite a bit of negative feedback when she presented this evidence but I agree with what she presented.  My son is in 3rd grade and just got his first phone for his birthday.  He loves the games on it but also uses the kindle app to read books :)  

The only question I had that I did not get to ask was - how do you find out what phone, if any, students have without embarrassing those without.  The only thing I could think of was an anonymous survey.  Any other ideas or things you guys have seen?

Tech in My Placement

My placement school has computers in the media center, two laptop carts, a few smart boards, some ELMO projectors, and a whole lot of smart phones!  Teachers at my placement school hang signs in their hall windows that are either red, yellow, or green.  The students know that these colors designate the level at which their phone can be used.  Red means it cannot be out at all, yellow means it can be used if it is for educational purposes, and green means have at it.  

My teacher keeps the yellow sign up and the kids do a great job at using their phones when the time is right.  Last week we were in the lab and the students were creating a model of a cell using things they had brought in from home.  Most of the students pulled up a photo of a cell on their phones and used that photo to successfully complete the project.  This week students were asked to write about how oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse across your alveoli into your capillaries.  I was happy to walk around see students googling and researching this topic on their phones.

I have also noticed students taking pictures of the agenda for the day or the assigned homework.  These may be students who do not have a planner or place to write down their homework so this is exciting that they are actually going to know what to do when they get home!  I plan on using Remind101 when I begin teaching so I will be able to send out a mass text reminding students and parents (if they choose) about the assigned homework.  This is an awesome tool I saw used over the summer.  Read more about Remind101 below- 

https://www.remind101.com/about

I look forward to doing webquest activities with my students in order to enhance student learning about difficult topics in science.  I have been researching some interactive activities to do with my students and found a great edublogger in the process!  I also plan on showing a lot of YouTube videos about different processes in science - Kreb, mitosis, meiosis, DNA replication, transcription, glycolysis, etc. etc.  The list is endless.  I have found it so helpful to watch animations of these processes when trying to learn them.  It brings them to life and is a lot more engaging then reading about them in a textbook (although students will be expected to do this also).  I have started writing my guided notes and have embedded links to videos throughout.  

What interesting things have you guys seen in your placements?  Any resources I must check out?  I look forward to hearing about your schools.

"Pull Yourself up by Your Bootstraps"

I am the type of person who tries to make the best out of a bad situation.  I try to find the positive in a not so positive situation.  

Certain aspects of this semester have been a challenge.  

Not the classes or working with Scarlett students but the never ending doomsday lectures about standards!  We have chosen to become teachers and were pretty excited about it until around the second day of class.  I feel like ever since we have gotten a healthy dose of pessimism in multiple classes.  I wanted to go to medical school and every physician I knew tried to talk me out of it.  I thought about PA school and got the same response from practicing PAs.  Current teachers look at you like you are crazy when you tell them you want to go into teaching.  Why do so many people bash their profession?  

Is everybody really that unhappy?!

I want to learn about all of the great things about teaching.  The positive impact we are going to have on our future students, the fun times we will have in the classroom, and the feeling at the end of the day like we are making the world a better place.

I totally get that standards are difficult to teach and difficult to follow and difficult to be tested on.  I get that standards are not a good indicator of student knowledge and stressful for students and teachers.  But - our leaders have decided that as of right now this is the best option they can come up with.  

So instead of the negative/doomsday/the sky is falling talk, why not teach us how to conform to the standards while also employing high leverage teaching practices.  

How about motivating us and telling us we will get through it and we will all make fabulous teachers! 

We learn how important it is to motivate our future students everyday :)  

Am I just living in a world full of rainbows and butterflies? 

I look forward to reading your comments - am I the only one who feels this way!?

Hurricane Maine

I have to admit, prior to this class I was not a blogger nor had I ever read a blog.  I have thoroughly enjoyed keeping a diary about different subjects and reading fellow classmates blogs. I have loved, the no pressure feeling that comes along with blogging.  No APA or MLA to worry about, just your thoughts!  

This week, my mind was blown when we were given the task to read a few different edubloggers.  I ended up choosing Hurricane Maine because the blogger is a biology teacher which is what I hope to teach someday.  Her blog was full of super helpful links, ideas, and resources.  She even had a "how to use this blog" tab.  My favorite part about her blog was that she encouraged comments in order to have a conversation with you about certain topics.  

My favorite part about her blog were the descriptions of activities she has done with her classes, followed by links to helpful resources, and a rundown of what went good and what she would do differently next time.  For example, she dissected owl pellets with her students.  She introduced the activity and described what she did with her class.  She included links to how best to complete the activity along with worksheets and grading rubrics!  She then included what went well and how she would change the activity for the next year.  How helpful!  Especially for a first time teacher!

I look forward to researching some more biology edubloggers and getting ideas for my future classroom! 

http://hurricanemaine.blogspot.com/

Video Game Classroom-

What do kids love, crave, and dream about...

VIDEO GAMES!

When Rory gave us the task of creating a classroom that runs like you are playing a video game, my imagination immediately went to work.  I then started second guessing some of my ideas because i've never even run a regular classroom so how would I be able to design a class that could run like a video game?  After a couple of days of considering the idea I decided that maybe my ideas would be relevant because they are not clouded by the knowledge about students and their current lack of motivation.  Maybe they would be so far outside of the box they would be good!  Sooooo without further ado, here is my idea for a classroom that is like a virtual video game...

- Day one, students should pick a character that represents them (Mario, Luigi, Steve, Wolverine, etc...) (when kids play video games, they always choose a character to play with)

- There should be a big board in the class that represents the characters progress through the levels

- The big units will be divided into smaller levels with a boss (test/exam) at the end (kids love trying to beat the boss at the end of a level)

- The units should be arranged so students can move at their own pace (if they finish early, they get a bonus game or activity to complete)

- Teaching should be done using a variety of different techniques: group work, computer work, and independent work should be used evenly (this will help keep all different types of learners engaged) 

- Students will not be given grades, they will either beat the level or be faced with a try again (kids fail video games often but they try over and over until they beat the level, what if a failing grade is causing them to give up?  Maybe a try again, would cause them to keep trying until they beat it?)

- The teacher should act as a facilitator and help guide students through the levels (I think classrooms where teachers act as facilitators to help guide students learning are a lot more effective than classes in which the teacher acts as a dominator or conductor) 

I look forward to reading your questions or comments about my ideas :)

Minecraft Survival

Minecraft is a single or multiplayer computer, xbox, ipad, iphone, and ipod game/app.  "The object of the game is to find and mine diamond and other ores," Kal Lawrence, age 8.   

Things minecraft can teach you about:

*from the mind of an 8-year-old avid minecraft player

1. Landforms and bodies of water

2. How to make glass by cooking sand in a furnace

3. A lot about different ores (coal, diamond, iron, gold, redstone, lapis lazuli)

4. Not to be wasteful because you have to chop down trees to build your home

5. Planting saplings that grow into trees

6. Growing wheat and grass

7. If water hits lava it turns into obsidian 

8. If lava hits water it turns into cobblestone 

9. You can strike flint with metal and you will get fire

10. Diamond is extremely rare to find but sometimes found in close proximity to lava if you are lucky

11. Keeping inventory of your stuff 

12. How you get leather from killing a cow (poor cow)

13. You can shear a sheep for wool instead of killing it

14. Math - you need 8 pieces of leather for a tunic

15. How to craft things out of ores you have mined 

16. How to make music out of note blocks

17. How to make a mineshaft 

18. What you need to bake a cake

19. How you get milk from a cow

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_in_education

BYOD

"...if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow..."

-John Dewey

Fight it or embrace it seems to be the debate when it comes to allowing students to bring their own cell phones, ipods, or tablets into the classroom.  I say, embrace it.  Let kids bring your own device (BYOD).  Kids are going to have their cell phones in their pockets, they are going to sneak them in your class, and they are going to secretly text their friends during class.  What if these technological devices were not forbid in school?  We know teenagers are drawn to the forbidden so why not allow cell phones, embrace them, and use them in positive ways in the class.

Students can be polled on their phones throughout class to see who is paying attention, what kids understand, or what they are confused about during the lecture.  

Teachers can send text message reminders to students about homework that is due the next day.

Students can record each other performing a lab in class that the teacher can grade after watching the video.

Students can get access and read ebooks on their devices in seconds.

Students can take pictures of images or text in a book that they may want to reference later.  

These are just a few of the reasons I think technological devices should be allowed in the classroom.  BYOD has the capability to revolutionize education!  

Times are changing and so should our teaching.  

Pin It!

This week we were given the task of becoming an expert on a web tool.  I was assigned Pinterest, and feel I have become quite the expert!  This was a great assignment because it forced you to learn the ins and outs of the assigned program.  I look forward to learning from my classmates tomorrow about the different webtools they have studied all week.

Below is the two page document I created in order to teach my group about Pinterest.

I really enjoyed this project and hope we have more like this in the future!